Catherine Opie

"Gem Fletcher chats to Catherine Opie. Known for her powerfully dynamic photography that examines the ideals and norms surrounding the culturally constructed American dream and American identity. She first gained recognition in the 1990s for her series of studio portraits titled Being and Having, in which she photographed gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals drawn from her circle of friends and artists. Opie has travelled extensively across the country exploring the diversity of America’s communities and landscapes, documenting quintessential American subjects—high school football players and the 2008 presidential inauguration—while also continuing to display America’s subcultures through formal portraits. Using dramatic staging, Opie presents cross-dressers, same-sex couples, and tattooed, scarred, and pierced bodies in intimate photographs that evoke traditional Renaissance portraiture—images of power and respect. In her portraits and landscapes, Opie establishes a level of ambiguity of both identity and place by exaggerating masculine or feminine characteristics, or by exaggerating distance, cropping, or blurring her landscapes.

Catherine has just released a new monograph – published by Phaidon, the book is organised in three themes: people, politics and place – the core tenants of her artistic investigation. It’s presented non-chronologically, a curatorial strategy she has been experimenting with for the last decade., which teases out connections between seemingly incongruent bodies of work. The result is a book with such a dynamic visual narrative, you can return to it again and again and see something new.

In the episode we talk about everything from visual strategies, audiences in the digital age, self-doubt, road trips, bearing witness, empathy, belonging and so much more. What is remarkable about Catherine is the ways in which she has the ability to shapeshift as an artist, to show a multiplicity of inquiry, queering the medium over and over again." - Gem Fletcher/'The Messy Truth' Podcast

To listen to the podcast click here

For almost 40 years, Catherine Opie has been documenting with psychological acuity the cultural and geographic identity of contemporary America. This unique artist monograph presents a compelling visual narrative of Opie's work since the early 1980s, pairing images across bodies of work to form a full picture of her artistic vision. With more than 300 beautiful illustrations and made in close collaboration with Opie, the book marks a turning point in the consideration of this artist's work to date.

Catherine Opie: Monograph, Phaidon

Phaidon will publish the first survery monography on Catherine Opie, now available to pre-order. This unique artist monograph presents a compelling visual narrative of Opie's work since the early 1980s, pairing images across bodies of work to form a full picture of her artistic vision. With more than 300 beautiful illustrations and made in close collaboration with Opie, the book marks a turning point in the consideration of this artist's work to date.  

Further information 

Catherine Opie: Artists-in-Dialogue, Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University

Catherine Opie will be joined by Marcellina Melvin, Senior Director of Healthy Equity Strategy, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute; and Andy Keller, PhD, President and CEO, Linda Perryman Evans Presidential Chair of Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. The conversation will explore the impact of the current political climate on mental health and will be led by the Moody's Executive Director Alison Weaver.

The talk will be held over Zoom, viewers can register in advance here. 

Friday, 23 October, 6-7pm (GMT; 12am-1am BST)

Further information

Catherine Opie: Artist Talk, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Catherine Opie will be in conversation, discussing her work including Yosemite, seen in the exhibiton Ansel Adams in Our Time. 

The conversation will be presented over Zoom. Viewers can register in advance here. 

Thursday, 15 October, 7-8pm (ET).

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Catherine Opie: 'Notes From America' Artist Talk, American Academy in Rome

Catherine Opie will discuss her work around community and home, as well as her recent road trip across the United States, with American Academy in Rome President Mark Robbins. Focusing on the idea of a place as a portrait, she will also touch on her interests to explore the Vatican with her camera during her residency at the American Academy in Rome.

The conversation will be presented over Zoom. Viewers can register in advance here. 

Monday, 5 October, 6pm (ET; 11pm GMT).

Further information 

Catherine Opie: Online Artist Talk, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art 

The Plug In ICA present a screening of Catherine Opie's The Modernist followed by an artist talk where Opie will discuss her career from the early 1990s until today focusing on her most recent works, The Modernist (2017) and Swamps and Political Collages (2019). The talk will be followed by a Q+A moderated by Nasrin Himada.

Follow the link to the live stream here. 

Thursday, 23 July, 6pm CT 

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Catherine Opie in conversation with Jonathan D. Katz, Barbican Centre 

Catherine Opie is joined by art historian and academic Jonathan D. Katz to discuss her work. Opie's political portraiture and documentary photography has consistently reflected on her interest in gender, identity and community. From her breakthrough series Being and Having (1991), which portrayed her friends from the queer, leather and BDSM communities on the West Coast, to images that unpack the gloss of American culture, highlighting racial and class divides, Opie’s body of work is a searing portrait of contemporary America.

Thursday, 20 February 

from 7:00pm

Frobisher Auditorium 1

Barbican Centre

Silk Street

London

EC2Y 8DS

Further information 

Catherine Opie, Akram Zaatari: Masculinities - Liberation through Photography, Barbican 

Examining depictions of masculinity from behind the lens, the Barbican brings together the work of over 50 international artists, photographers and filmmakers including Catherine Opie and Akram Zaatari. 

Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS

Exhibition dates: 20 February - 17 May 2020 

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Catherine Opie: Newly endowed chair in art, UCLA

UCLA announces Catherine Opie as the first endowed chair in the art department. Opie has been a member of the art faculty at UCLA since 2001. The endowment comes courtesy of a $2-million donation from Lynda and Stewart Resnick, owners of the Wonderful Co. and prominent arts patrons. 

Further information 

Catherine Opie: Artist Walk-throughs, Lari Pittman, Hammer Museum 

Thursday, 5 December

6:00pm

Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles

Further information 

Catherine Opie: In conversation, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 

Catherine Opie will be in conversation with Robin Coste Lewis, discussing the intersection of motherhood, identity, and feminsim in their respective practices.

Wednesday 13 November 2019 

7:00pm 

Cinéma du Musée

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

1379-A Sherbrooke Street West

Further information 

Lynda Benglis and Catherine Opie: Honoured, Hirshhorn Gala, New York 

For its fifth New York annual gala, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden present 'Artist x Artist', celebrating 42 artists including Lynda Benglis and Catherine Opie. 

Monday 4 November 2019

6:30-11:00pm

David Geffen Hall

Lincoln Center Plaza

New York

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Catherine Opie: Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, London

Spanning the past 50 years, Kiss My Genders brings together over 100 artworks by artists from around the world who employ a wide range of approaches to articulate and engage with gender fluidity, as well as with non-binary, trans and intersex identities.

Hayward Gallery

337-338 Belvedere Rd

Lambeth

London

12 June - 8 September 2019

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Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road, Tate Modern, London

Catherine Opie's 700 Nimes Road 2010-11 is exhibited at Tate Modern's collection room, Artist and Society, through 17 November 2019.⁣⁣

Tate Modern 

Bankside

London SE1 9TG

Further information 

Catherine Opie: Installation for moCa, Cleveland 

Catherine Opie’s site-responsive work The Outside-Inside, Installation for moCa Cleveland (2019) reimagines the interior architecture of moCa as a window to the larger landscape of Lake Erie. Opie’s installation consists of eight different images, each of which was shot onsite in Cleveland as part of a 2011 invitation to make new work for the Cleveland Clinic. Transforming the resulting images into a large-scale architectural installation, Opie’s The Outside-Inside, Installation for moCa Cleveland is an immersive yet intimate portrait of a specific place, Cleveland, while simultaneously a poetic mediation on the passage of time. 

moCa Cleveland

11400 Euclid Avenue,

Cleveland, Ohio

27 April 2019 - 5 January 2020

Further information 

Catherine Opie: 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship 

Congratulations to Catherine Opie, who has been awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship. 

Further information 

Catherine Opie: Artist Lecture, California State University 

Arts Week Visiting Artist Lecture 

TSU Pavilion C

California State University, Fullerton

Wednesday 10 April 2019

12-1:15pm 

Further information

Catherine Opie: Lecture, Southeast Museum of Photography

Part of the ACA Master Artist series, Catherine Opie will be giving a presentation on her work at the Southeast Museum of Photography.

Southeast Museum of Photography

Madorsky Theater

Daytona State College

Daytona Beach 

Thursday 28 February 2019

5:30 - 6:30pm

Further information 

Catherine Opie: Artists, Activism, Agency: A Conversation with Nadya Tolokonnikova, Shepard Fairey, Catherine Opie and Tavares Strachan

For the third program in the Artist Talk series — celebrating Los Angeles's contemporay art scene — artists including Catherine Opie willl discuss their practice in relation to the subjects of radical protest and resistance, gender and sex, power, freedom and incarceration, community, and identity. 

The Broad Stage 

The Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center 

1310 11th St. 

Santa Monica 

Monday 11 February 2019

6:30 - 9:00pm 

Further information 

Public talk at The National Portrait Gallery

In conversation: Catherine Opie with Dr Nicholas Cullinan

Ondaatje Wing Theatre, WC2

Monday 2 October, 2pm

Free (Tickets required - Book online)

Further information